I am trying - and failing - to add a music track to my latest video project. The music is from a commercial CD of mood music, copyright-free and all that. Not that that matters.

I extracted two tracks from the CD using Adobe Audition 3 and saved them to a folder on my computer. 

But when I try to drag one of the tracks to the music track of the project it appears to be all right - but after a couple of seconds it just drops off again. The same happens if I try to add it to the sound effects track - not that that is an option as the commentary is on that track.

I even tried to add a sound recording of an organ playing - this was successfully added to the music track previously - but that, too, now drops off. This was a track of a few minutes recorded "live" on a tape cassette with the sole aim of running it with the various video shots of the instrument.

However . . . if I open a new video project and just add the CD music track to the music track of the empty project it stays there, perfectly all right.    

I have tried deleting the auxiliary files, to no effect.

The video project is 55 minutes long, and 4.68MB. The music plays all right in Adobe Audition 3.

Oh, yes. I am still in the Dark Ages with Studio 9 Plus. But that can't be the problem. Can it . . .?  

  

 

   

1. You ripped the tracks to mp3 or wav?
You have better chances with wav.

2. Could be your project got corrupted.
Select all assets on TL and copy (ctrl+c)
Open a new emty project, click on TL and paste (ctr+v)
Save this new project to a different name.
Try to add ripped CD track.

Does any of these 2 suggestions work?

Paul,

1, To wav.

 2, I am sure you could be correct about the corrupted project.

I have just tried to make some alterations to the project: shorten a scene; change the text in the end credits. There is a pause and the project returns to how it was before I attempted the changes. Clearly that is what happens when I try to add the music. A slight pause, and then a return to how it was.

This happened at about this stage in a previous video project. The answer I was given then was to make an .avi file (by rendering), call that in to a new project and then add the music. That worked last time and so I will give it a try.

As further proof of corruption . . . I followed your No 2 suggestion - selected the elements (ctrl+a) and copied (ctrl+c), but it took ages. Then, when I opened a new project, I couldn't paste the project in (ctrl+v).

While, I am writing. . .  I noticed that the project had slowed right down before this latest problem. I would click on to a scene to do something with it and then had to wait up to a minute before there was any reaction. But surely the project isn't too large, is it? Perhaps it is the case that - like me - the computer is getting old and slow!   

 Thanks

Hi, John.

What version of Studio are you currently using?  It's 9.4.3?

If so, you've been bitten by the "silent operation failed" behavior.  Used to be, if a Studio project got into a "mode" that it couldn't recover from, it would pop up an error message ("Operation Failed:  whatever"), and would then roll back the change.  In Studio 9.4, Pinnacle changed the behavior of Studio so that it would NOT pop up the error message, but would still do the rollback.

In this case, it is usually very hard to recover your project.  One of the suggestions that I'm partial to is to periodically do a "File/Save As" to a new project name (My MovieA1.stu, My MovieA2.stu, My MovieA3.stu, etc.) so that if the project goes South, you still have a fairly recent edit point to recover to.

 

(Update:  AARGH!  I can't find the S9 Operation Failed FAQ in the new Knowledge Base.  It USED to be there, before they merged it into the Avid mess....   What good are all of the old FAQs if you can't find 'em?)

Hi, bittmann. Nice to hear from you again.

Yes, I am still on 9.4.3. But don't worry. I have resolved the problem. It was a case of rolling back the change, as you put it. Can Studio really only cope with so many actions/keystrokes (on the computer) before it gets all tangled up and stops?  

Since my last post, I have made an AVI file, opened a new project, called in the AVI file to a new project which I have called MyVideo MkII (not the real title; but I don't want to confuse things).

I was then able to add the music to the music track (well, one section to test things), and to delete a partially complete section to be replaced later with the proper one.

The only problem is that the scenes on the Timeline are all black (no first frames to tell me where I am). Did I do something wrong in making the AVI? But I can't have done so; I just selected AVI file in "Make Movie" and left it to Studio. But I shall now be fumbling in the dark to add the background music.

Why didn't I realise this was the problem, having being told what it was last year? Well, the last major video project I did took three years of very poor summers up to 2008. I only went out videoing on sunny days. I also edited as I went along in a bid to save time. I would go out, shoot a sequence, come home and capture the footage, edit it - adding the pre-recorded commentary and background music. Each autumn I rendered the project so far and sent a DVD to the members of the team.

I was convinced the editing and the multiple rendering might have been responsible for the problem. Too much for Studio to cope with. I didn't make the connection with that and the current problem. With hindsight I realise it is just that.

I didn't get an error message, by the way. Just dumb insolence from Studio! 

A minor problem: Anyone with this problem won't look under "Cannot add CD music . . . " and they will miss it. You see, I like to think that as I get my problem solved I am helping other video makers who are reading the thread and have the same problem. [Or is it just me?] I shall write all this down now and keep it for the next time the problem raises its ugly head.

 

The only problem is that the scenes on the Timeline are all black (no first frames to tell me where I am). Did I do something wrong in making the AVI? But I can't have done so; I just selected AVI file in "Make Movie" and left it to Studio. But I shall now be fumbling in the dark to add the background music.

In your excitement to add the AVI file to the new timeline, you may have stopped scene detection.    It has been a while since I used S9, but there should be an option to divide the avi file into scenes.  Try right-clicking on the file in the album.   You should see something like "detect scenes by video content" or "subdivide scenes".  These choices should also appear in the Album menu. 

 ADDED: I just reread your post and if in fact your scenes were detected but the thumnails are black, e.g. because they include your transitions, you can change the black thumbnail to a more meaningful image by placing the cursor in the timeline at the point where the scene shows a relevant preview image, right-clicking and choosing "Set Thumbnail."

Greg,

I can't have made myself clear. The scenes are all there, indivudually, both in the album and on the time line. It's just that the icons of the first frames are missing in both cases.

I've tried to follow your instructions, but either the actions are greyed out or the requested action, when available, doesn't happen. I tried the "Set thumbnail" idea in the album and on the timeline, but nothing happened.

Fortunately, the sound track came up separately (and is editable) so I could find my way by looking for the waveform. But it will not be as easy as looking for the images at the start of each scene. The transitions are part of the individual scenes and the sound track doesn't indicate a dissolve, for instance. That would have provided useful mileposts at the start of each sequence.

It is significant that no-one has said "Of course, if you upgrade to Studio Plus 14 none of this will happen."    

One further point as to what might have caused the lock-in in the first place: Because of the sluggishness of Studio, I deleted the commentary sound files from the computer once I had placed all the sections on the sound track. This, of course, led to the comments "Can't detect Track 1. Do you wish to search for it?" (Or whatever it says). This was because the total size of the commentary files was 550MB and I thought it might help Studio not to have to bother with them. When I later restored the commentary files to the computer the sections all dropped back into the right places.  

Dabber, you made yourself perfectly clear.  Maybe I didn't.    The Set Thumbnail command should only be greyed out if you are on the first frame of the scene.  If you place the cursor at the first frame of a scene in the timeline, what appears in the preview window?  Is it black because of a transition, for example?  Or is it the image that you are expecting to see (and to use) as a marker?  If the image is black (and even if it isn't) move the cursor a second forward (or even a few frames) so that the cursor is on a frame that gives you an acceptable image in the preview screen. Then try the Set Thumbnail command again. 

Greg,

The problem is that all the scenes in the album (all 31 dual pages = 558 scenes), and all those on the timeline, are black no matter where I click on them in the album or on the timeline. Even half way through. But the preview screen always has the picture (the scene) showing.   

I have tried looking at the first picture of several scenes at random - using the frame-by-frame arrows and none of the pictures show as black in the preview window. In other words, it is nothing to do with transitions.

Amazingly, I did find one black frame at the start of a single shot (talk about finding a needle in a haystack) but moving to the next frame (a picture) and clicking on Set Thumbnail made no difference.     

But all is not lost - I can go through the previous version of the video (which thankfully I didn't delete) and note the starting time of each segment of the video, where I will want to add the background music and then select them by finding the times.

In case of any problems I always make a separate back-up version of a project - so that I have "myvideo" and "myvideo back-up" as two separate video files. I did have to use the back-up version once in making this video. Do you think the extra version had anything to do with the locking-up problem?  

"One of the suggestions that I'm partial to is to periodically do a "File/Save As" to a new project name (My MovieA1.stu, My MovieA2.stu, My MovieA3.stu, etc.) so that if the project goes South, you still have a fairly recent edit point to recover to."

Going back to this statement on your earlier post, bittmann. Does this prevent Studio from freeezing up and refusing to do any more? Is it a case of so many editing actions and that is it?

You will have noted my question to Greg about having a back-up version.   

The problem is that all the scenes in the album (all 31 dual pages = 558 scenes), and all those on the timeline, are black

Hmmm . . . .  I'm thinking that maybe there were too many thumbnails to be recorded to file, given your computer specs.  If you would still find it useful to have the proper thumbnails in your working video, here are a couple of suggestions.  First, if you are able to do so, in the View menu, change large thumbnails to small thumbnails (or vice versa).  I don't have a clue whether this will do anything useful, but it may be worth a try.  If that doesn't work, delete the video *.scn file, and Detect Scenes by Video Content again.  I'm running out of ideas for this one.  I'm sure Bittmann will have some better ones when he comes along. 

Greg,

You could well be right. But, it's fine, thanks. Don't worry. I have managed to stumble through the process without thumbnails and have all but finished the editing of the video. Just the end credits to do. 

I hesitate to do anything else at this stage in case I set off something else. But once the video project is safely consigned to a master DVD I will try what you suggested for future use.

But thanks for trying to find a solution.   

Having got the video completed finally, I have another problem - and a couple of questions!

I find that there is a pattern on scenes involving a pan. Maybe it is there in static scenes but not noticeable. It looks as though the lens was dirty, well smeared, except that the "mark" has a fluid movement.

Could this be due to the fact that I had to make an AVI file in order to move on when Studio refused to go any further? Why I ask is that I noticed that while a "normal" AVI, i.e. as in shot by the camera, measures 720 x 576 pixels, the AVI file I created is 640 x 480. This is because Make Movie, AVI file was set to Intel Indeo(R) Video R3.2. Is that the default setting, because I don't recall choosing it.

Which of the options of codecs will give me 720 x 576?

I am thinking that I will have to make a new AVI file from the video project and do the last bit again. A day's work without the rendering that follows!

I was also surprised by the size of the files. While a finished (rendered) video can be large - my video pre rendering is 4.69MB - the AVI file is only 355KB for 56 minutes. I have letter files that are bigger than that. No, not really.  But it seems a small file to me and makes me think "No wonder there is 'smearing' on some scenes."       

Use DV AVI (IMO).  Quality will be *much* better.

Thanks, bittmann. I'll give it a try.

I might have to put it off for a time as I need to make some of the current version available to people who want to send a DVD to family in Australia, etc, for Christmas. Postal deadlines and all that. 

I write that as there might be a delay before I come back and say it worked.  

Perhaps it is only me who is aware of the smears anyway.

bittmann:

Use DV AVI (IMO).  Quality will be *much* better.

That's better! DV Video Encoder gave me a file size of 11.7GB compared with 2.35MB with the Intel Indeo(R) Video3.2. DV Video Encoder gives a 720 x 576 picture.   

I have only seen the new version on the full-screen preview screen on my computer, but there appears to be no "smearing".   

I was going to put off doing the better version but my hand was forced when the AVI "MyVideo MkII" version seized up on me!

Thanks, bittmann  

 PS: I forgot to say. This time the first frames of all scenes are visible. I'm no longer fumbling in the dark (black frames).